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Board affirms current local practice on prayer and religious expression rather than adopting SB11 schedule
Summary
Trustees voted to retain the district's existing approach — daily moments of silence and allowing voluntary personal religious expression outside instructional time — instead of implementing the more prescriptive schedule outlined by Senate Bill 11, citing logistical concerns.
Interim Superintendent Gwen Gilliam briefed trustees on Senate Bill 11 and its operational requirements, saying the bill would require a uniform, non‑instructional time for prayer or religious text that is difficult to coordinate across campuses with differing schedules. Gilliam said the district's current practice — daily moments of silence and allowing students to bring personal religious texts — already preserves students' religious freedoms without imposing a single mandated time.
"It becomes a logistic nightmare," Gilliam said, describing constraints such as staggered passing times, lunch schedules and drills that would make a single daily devotion period impractical. Trustees voted to affirm that current local practices provide the protections described by the law and to retain the district's existing approach rather than adopt the SB11 schedule.
